Chapter 5 - The Mistress Who Knew Too MuchFor several seconds, I couldn't move.
The telephone lay against my ear, producing a faint electronic tone.
My father's last words seemed to repeat inside my skull.
Someone disabled the emergency braking system.
I thought about Sophie sitting in the back seat with her stuffed rabbit.
I thought about Adrian driving.
I thought about Vivian demanding that he hurry because she was afraid of missing their flight.
And for the first time, I wondered whether the crash had truly been an accident.
Daniel entered the room and immediately noticed my face.
“What happened?”
I lowered the telephone.
“My father said the SUV's emergency braking system had been disabled before the crash.”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“Did he say who did it?”
“No.”
“Did he say how he knows?”
“No.”
Eleanor stood from her chair.
“Then we need the original vehicle records.”
I stared at her.
“Where would we find those?”
“From the manufacturer, the repair shop, or the people who examined the vehicle after the crash.”
“Adrian owns half the repair shops his security team uses.”
“Which is why we need someone outside his network.”
Daniel walked toward the window and moved a corner of the curtain.
“There may be someone who can help.”
“Who?”
“A mechanic named Peter Novak. He used to handle maintenance for Adrian's private vehicle fleet. He left the company two years ago.”
“Why?”
Daniel glanced at Eleanor.
“Because he refused to falsify inspection records.”
That caught my attention.
“Would he talk to us?”
“If he believes we're serious.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“We shouldn't approach him directly. Adrian will have people checking everyone connected to the accident.”
Daniel considered this.
Then he looked at the key in my hand.
“Perhaps locker 714 contains something that identifies the person who altered the records.”
I wrapped my fingers around the brass key.
“Then we're going to Union Station.”
We left before dawn, taking different routes and changing vehicles twice. Daniel dropped Eleanor and me several blocks from the station and drove away.
Chicago's Union Station was already filling with commuters.
People rushed past carrying briefcases, paper cups, backpacks, and suitcases. Announcements echoed through the building. Shoes clicked against polished floors.
Nobody looked twice at a tired woman in a gray coat holding a shopping bag.
I had placed the urn inside the bag, wrapped in Sophie's blanket.
I hated carrying it through the crowd.
It felt wrong to bring her into a place filled with strangers who had no idea she had ever existed.
But I refused to leave her behind.
Eleanor studied the signs above us.
“Your father said not to use the main entrance with the key. We need another way to the lockers.”
We followed a corridor toward a secondary luggage-storage area near an older service passage.
The brass key fit a narrow lock beneath a row of numbered compartments.
714.
The lock turned with a soft click.
Inside lay a brown envelope, a small digital recorder, and a photograph.
The photograph showed Adrian standing beside my father outside a building I had never seen before.
They were not smiling.
Adrian's hand rested on my father's shoulder, but the gesture looked less friendly than possessive.
On the back, someone had written:
Three weeks before Claire's engagement.
I turned the photograph over again.
My stomach tightened.
Adrian had told me that he met my father only once, during a charity event.
He had claimed they barely spoke.
The photograph proved otherwise.
I opened the envelope.
Inside were copies of vehicle maintenance logs, a printed email, and several pages containing numbers and account references.
Most of it meant nothing to me.
One page stopped me cold.
It contained a maintenance entry for Adrian's SUV, dated two days before the crash.
The entry read:
Emergency braking system calibration suspended pending manual inspection.
Beneath it was a digital approval code.
A name.
Marco Bellini.
I stared at it.
Marco had worked for Adrian for years. He had been at our wedding. He had held Sophie when she was a baby. He had once driven through a snowstorm to bring her favorite medicine from a pharmacy that was about to close.
He had been at the hospital when she died.
He had stood at her funeral.
And according to the document in my hand, he had authorized a change to the SUV's braking system shortly before the crash.
“Eleanor,” I whispered.
She read the page.
Her face went still.
“We can't assume this proves he intended to harm Sophie.”
“I know.”
The words came out sharper than I intended.
I took a breath.
“I know it doesn't prove that. But he knew the system was compromised.”
Eleanor nodded.
“We need the original records.”
A noise sounded behind us.
A suitcase rolled across the floor.
Then came the measured rhythm of expensive shoes.
Eleanor looked up.
At the far end of the passage, a man in a charcoal coat stood beside a vending machine.
He was watching us.
When our eyes met, he immediately looked away.
I recognized the small scar above his right eyebrow.
Adrian's security team.
“Claire,” Eleanor whispered. “Put everything away.”
I slipped the documents into the shopping bag.
The man began walking toward us.
We turned in the opposite direction.
“Don't run,” Eleanor murmured. “Not yet.”
We passed a group of commuters, descended a staircase, and emerged beside a crowded platform.
The train doors were closing.
Eleanor grabbed my wrist.
“Now.”
We boarded just before the doors shut.
Through the window, I saw the man reach the platform.
He looked directly at me.
Then he raised his telephone.
I knew he was calling Adrian.
We changed trains twice and exited through a different station. Daniel was waiting in an underground parking structure across the street.
The moment we got inside the car, I handed him the maintenance record.
He examined it carefully.
“Marco Bellini,” he murmured.
“You know him?”
“Everyone in Adrian's organization knows him.”
“Could he have disabled the brakes?”
“He could have arranged the maintenance. That doesn't prove he did anything deliberately.”
I looked toward the window.
“Then we'll find someone who can tell us what happened.”
Daniel drove us to an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of the city.
Peter Novak's repair shop stood between a shuttered warehouse and a tire distributor. The sign above the entrance was faded, and a single fluorescent light illuminated the office.
A bell rang when we entered.
A stocky man with silver hair emerged from beneath a raised garage door.
“We're closed.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Peter, my name is Daniel Mercer. We worked with some of the same people.”
Peter's eyes narrowed.
“I told those people I don't work for them anymore.”
“We aren't here on their behalf.”
Peter looked at me.
Then his gaze dropped to the shopping bag I was holding.
Something changed in his expression.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Claire DeLuca.”
Peter became very still.
After several seconds, he locked the front door.
“Come inside.”
He led us into a small office and pulled the blinds closed.
When I showed him the maintenance record, he read it without speaking.
Then he sat down.
“Where did you get this?”
“Locker 714 at Union Station.”
His expression tightened.
“Thomas Hale.”
“You knew my father?”
Peter nodded slowly.
“He came to me after I left Adrian's company. He was investigating a vehicle maintenance contractor that handled several of Adrian's cars.”
“What did he discover?”
Peter placed the document on the desk.
“The emergency braking system on that SUV wasn't supposed to be disabled. It was supposed to be recalibrated by a certified technician. Someone changed the work order.”
“Who?”
“I never learned who gave the final instruction.”
“But you know something.”
Peter looked at the closed blinds.
Then he reached into a filing cabinet and removed a small notebook.
“I kept copies of the work orders because I knew someone was falsifying records. I thought it was insurance fraud.”
He opened the notebook to a page marked with a red tab.
“Two days before the crash, someone requested an unauthorized change to your husband's SUV.”
I leaned forward.
“Who made the request?”
Peter looked at me.
“Vivian Cole.”
The room seemed to grow smaller.
“She contacted the contractor personally,” he continued. “She said Adrian wanted the vehicle prepared for a high-speed trip to the airport.”
My hands began trembling.
“Did Adrian know?”
“I don't know.”
“Did she know what the change would do?”
Peter closed the notebook.
“I can't prove it. But she knew the work was unusual. She specifically requested that the service record be kept out of the ordinary maintenance system.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
I had gone to the hospital believing that my husband had made a reckless decision.
Now I had evidence that Vivian had personally arranged an unauthorized modification to the vehicle.
But there was still something I couldn't understand.
Why would she risk an accident?
Why would she tamper with a car she intended to ride in?
Peter seemed to read the question in my face.
“There's something else.”
He opened a drawer and pulled out a printed message.
“The contractor received this instruction after the work was completed.”
I read the sentence.
If there is an incident, the vehicle must be inspected by the DeLuca security team before any independent investigator is permitted access.
Beneath it was an electronic signature.
Marco Bellini.
I looked up at Peter.
“You said you thought it was insurance fraud.”
“I did.”
“Do you still think that?”
Peter's expression was grim.
“No.”
Before I could ask another question, the lights in the workshop went out.
Daniel rose from his chair.
A car door slammed outside.
Then another.
Someone tried the front handle.
Peter whispered a curse.
Eleanor pulled me toward a narrow door behind the filing cabinets.
“Where does that go?”
“An old service corridor,” Peter replied.
He handed Daniel the notebook.
“Get her out of here.”
A voice came through the front entrance.
“Claire DeLuca. We know you're inside.”
Adrian's voice.
I froze.
He wasn't supposed to know where I was.
He wasn't supposed to have found us.
Then the voice spoke again, colder this time.
“Open the door, Claire.”
I clutched Sophie's ashes.
May you like
And heard the man I had once loved make a promise that sounded less like a plea than a threat.
“I only want to bring my family home.”
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